What you end up thinking most about is what it might have felt like that day ~ and what it has felt like at less dramatic moments in our own lives ~ to be faced with a moment of such profound and clear requirements to act for the good of others. It is almost a necessary feature of placid and prosperous lives that moments of such supreme moral clarity are kept to a minimum. And while all of us want peace and prosperity, we still long for such moments; we need them, in order to learn in the deepest sense who we are and what our relatively brief time on the planet might actually be intended to accomplish. The heroes of Flight 93 at least were given the answer to those questions.
Sometimes we have to hear from individual people to appreciate the magnitude of a tragedy. September 11: An Oral History" [New York Times]
People I knew died on September 11. With ties to Boston (where three of the planes originated) and New York as well as DC, I suspect that I was in a prime demographic to be affected. Many people I know suffered devasting losses. We are not done with the accounting.
I've just signed up for another jewelry class which begins on September 11 (in the evening). I haven't decided yet whether I'll attend the first class, or go to a memorial service being held at my church. I'd like to keep living my life... but I also know it will never be the same.